Nittany Catholic

April 13

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Fr. Edward Mazich, OSB:

The joy of “Hosanna!” in today’s first reading turns quickly to a harsher reality in the next reading from the Prophet Isaiah, where we hear the “Servant of the Lord” — a prefiguration of Christ — say: “I gave my back to those who beat me…my face I did not hide from insults and spitting.” Psalm 22 has a plaintive tone to it as well: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

As much as we want to place ourselves on the side of the righteous who would be among the crowd on that first Palm Sunday crying “Hosanna!” we must acknowledge that we are also marked by the same sinful rejection of Christ that led the very same crowd to demand his death just a few days later, as they shouted “Away with this man!…crucify him! Crucify him!”

The turning point between these radically different perspectives is found in our human struggle to do what is good while we are attracted by the apparent freedom to do otherwise. St. Paul struggled with this and spoke eloquently of his spiritual battle in his Letter to the Romans: “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate…For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”

For Paul, the struggle was often against the temptation of spiritual pride and arrogance…we all have various patterns of sin in our personal lives that cause us to turn from the Lord and join the crowd shouting “Away with him!” Lent is the time given to us each year to humbly focus our gaze inward and to ask that God fill us with the grace to let go of whatever keeps us from praising the Lord with “Hosannas” rather than wounding him with our sins.

The good thief said to our Lord: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” let us imitate his compunction this Holy Week that we might rejoice in the fullness of Christ’s redemption on Easter and beyond.

—Join us for Mass—

Welcome to all our visitors here this weekend — join us on Saturday at 4pm, or on Sunday at 9:30 or 11:30am, or 9pm!

—Readings—

Lk 19:28-40
Is 50:4-7
Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
Phil 2:6-11
Lk 22:14—23:56

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March 9

First Sunday of Lent

Fr. Campion Gavaler, OSB:

The temptations of Jesus point back to the temptations of Israel in the past, and point forward to the trials that the Church in all its members will undergo in the future. It is now we who are in the wilderness, with no lasting city, on a journey to the Promised Land. Each trial that life brings even to our dying day is a crisis, but is also an opportunity to trust more completely that the Lord is with us, and that we do love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might. We are confident that we will triumph in our trials of faith, not because of our own strength, but because Jesus has given us his holy Spirit. Thus sharing the fidelity of his undivided heart, we can pray with confidence: Our Father, do not let us be defeated by temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

—Join us for Mass—

⏰Spring ahead this Sunday, March 9!

Welcome to all our visitors here this weekend — join us on Saturday at 4pm, or on Sunday at 10:30am!

—Readings—

Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13

January 28

Saint Thomas Aquinas
Priest and Doctor of the Church

Franciscan Media:

By universal consent, Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation, and one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church.

His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony, and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished.

The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on…. All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.

Read more:

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-03/pope-francis-thomas-aquinas-750-years-relevant-social-sciences.html

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church, pray for us!

January 25

The Conversion of Paul

Franciscan Media:

Saint Paul’s entire life can be explained in terms of his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot’s hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: “…entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment” (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was “entered,” possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal—being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior.

Paul’s great message to the world was: You are saved entirely by God, not by anything you can do. Saving faith is the gift of total, free, personal and loving commitment to Christ, a commitment that then bears fruit in more “works” than the Law could ever contemplate.

Read Pope Francis’s message for the Conversion of Saint Paul:

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2024/documents/20240125-vespri-unita-cristiani.html

January 23

Saint Vincent
Deacon and Martyr

Franciscan Media:

Most of what we know about this saint comes from the poet Prudentius. His Acts have been rather freely colored by the imagination of their compiler. But Saint Augustine, in one of his sermons on Saint Vincent, speaks of having the Acts of his martyrdom before him. We are at least sure of his name, his being a deacon, the place of his death and burial.

According to the story we have, the unusual devotion he inspired must have had a basis in a very heroic life. Vincent was ordained deacon by his friend Saint Valerius of Zaragossa in Spain. The Roman emperors had published their edicts against the clergy in 303, and the following year against the laity. Vincent and his bishop were imprisoned in Valencia. Hunger and torture failed to break them. Like the youths in the fiery furnace, they seemed to thrive on suffering.

Valerius was sent into exile, and Dacian, the Roman governor, now turned the full force of his fury on Vincent. Tortures that sound very modern were tried. But their main effect was the progressive disintegration of Dacian himself. He had the torturers beaten because they failed.

Finally he suggested a compromise: Would Vincent at least give up the sacred books to be burned according to the emperor’s edict? He would not. Torture on the gridiron continued, the prisoner remaining courageous, the torturer losing control of himself. Vincent was thrown into a filthy prison cell—and converted the jailer. Dacian wept with rage, but strangely enough, ordered the prisoner to be given some rest.

Friends among the faithful came to visit him, but he was to have no earthly rest. When they finally settled him on a comfortable bed, he went to his eternal rest.

Read more:

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-vincent-124

Saint Vincent, Deacon and Martyr, pray for us!